Victoria's office will join forces with the company's eight full-service bank branches, according to the release. It will offer a variety of loan products, including farm and ranch, business, commercial real estate, in-house and secondary market mortgages and others.

Plans call for the office to open by the end of October.

Two senior lending officers with nearly 20 years of combined lending experience - Clay Kolle and Tony L. Knebel - will run the Victoria office.

Kolle, an Inez resident, has spent almost eight years of his banking career with The First State Bank. Knebel, a Victoria resident, is new to The First State Bank family but has been a lender for nearly 12 years in the Crossroads area.

The First State Bank first opened in May 1956 and continues to grow in each community it calls home.

For more information, call Kolle at 979-541-6353 or Knebel at 361-648-5430.